Blackberry Melomel -- finished?

I have a blackberry mead/melomel that I'd like to bottle -- my first ever. The recipe included 12 lbs honey, with 8 pounds blackberries in a 5 gallon carboy.

I know that the fermentation needs to stop (no bubbles, FG below 0.998) prior to bottling, but also that it needs to clear. The problem is that the 8 pounds of fresh blackberries gave the must a dark hue, making it hard to judge clarity. My questions are:

How can I measure the clarity of a darker wine?
Will it clear more over time, regardless of the tannins/etc that are now in the must?
Am I ready to bottle?

I have tried shining a flashlight through the carboy and looking at it from teh opposite end. It shines through bright, but with a "haze" around it.

FYI, it's been sitting for over 3 months now. Thanks in advance!

Rack to a secondary. Take a gravity reading at that time. You'll get a lot better judgement of clarity. Also, after another 3 months in the secondary, you'll see what would have been in your bottles.

Sounds like it's going to be delicious!

I've been wanting to make exactly that. It sounds wonderful.

It's tasting very good. I think I'll try carbonating about 1/2 of it -- I can imagine it tasting like a strong lambic almost!

Oh and I forgot to mention, it's been racked 3 times already!

Well this was bottled this past weekend. OG was 1.098, FG 0.998.

It tasted quite good! I added 2/3 cup of honey + 0.5 fresh blackberry juice to prime, then bottled half of it to be sparkling (beer bottles). Then added another 1/3 cup honey and pot. sorb. for the "sweet&still" half.

I think the freshly added blackberries at bottling will really contribute to a quicker drinkability. My wife and I were REALLY enjoying our taste testing as we bottled!! Great Blackberry taste, with a nice honey aroma.

Highly recommended!

So you added 2/3 C of honey and 1/2 something blackberry juice too all of it. And then you added another 1/3 C of honey to the second half? If you did all this before you added the sorbate, you should keep a close watch on the second half. You need to use both sorbate and bisulphite and then wait a bit for them to work, then backsweeten. Sounds like you backsweetened then added the sorbate, you could be in a bit of trouble. What was the backsweetened hald bottled in?

sounds good man, hope it lasts longer for you then mine tend to.
1 suggestion I would give is to hide a few bottles where you cant get to them and let em sit for a long time, age is good.

Haha, that seems to be a real problem of mine with any brew. I've got 6 grolsch bottles of barleywine that are NEVER gonna reach their 1 year birthday!!

Now that I'm getting into wine/mead I'm going to have to develop a lock and (hide the) key strategy.

Tusch said:

So you added 2/3 C of honey and 1/2 something blackberry juice too all of it. And then you added another 1/3 C of honey to the second half? If you did all this before you added the sorbate, you should keep a close watch on the second half. You need to use both sorbate and bisulphite and then wait a bit for them to work, then backsweeten. Sounds like you backsweetened then added the sorbate, you could be in a bit of trouble. What was the backsweetened hald bottled in?

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That's a good acct of what I added. The 1/2 cup was just fresh crushed blackberry juice, so not much sugar there.

I have since come to this realization that there may be bottle bombs in my basement. I'm definitely going to keep a close eye on those bottles. They are in corked wine bottles <gulp>, but at least we use a floor corker with #9 corks.

When could I expect them to start popping? Within a week?

esarkipato said:

That's a good acct of what I added. The 1/2 cup was just fresh crushed blackberry juice, so not much sugar there.

I have since come to this realization that there may be bottle bombs in my basement. I'm definitely going to keep a close eye on those bottles. They are in corked wine bottles <gulp>, but at least we use a floor corker with #9 corks.

When could I expect them to start popping? Within a week?

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It's hard to say when they'll pop their corks or explode. Maybe not within a week. I'd pull out the corks and put them back in a carboy (gently as to not aerate) and check the SG for a month or two. If you'd rather not do that, you could try opening a bottle in a week or so and see if it's carbonated. If it's carbonated, then it's fermenting.

What I recommend is stabilizing first, then waiting a few days and then sweeten. Wait a few more days (to make sure fermentation isn't going to restart) and then bottle.

What about the "wine conditioner" that is supposed to stabilize and sweeten in one shot? Is that method basically not acceptable or trustworthy?

Well, just to update....the carbed bottles of melomel are very nice and bubbly at this point. Luckily the still bottles are still corked and stable as far as I can tell (knock on wood). Definitely lesson learned, and I'm going to be more cautious with my stabilizing in the future!